Cristiano da Matta seems unstoppable in CART Champ Car competition, as he
added another point to his tally with provisional pole position for
Sunday's 21st Marconi Grand prix of Cleveland at Burke Lakefront Airport.
Taking a lap of the 2.106-mile, 10-turn airport circuit of 57.641 seconds
(131.531mph) in his #6 Havoline Lola/Toyota, da Matta bested his good
friend Tony Kanaan by .451 seconds, as Kanaan earned second place in the
#10 Pioneer/WorldCom Lola/Honda (58.092 seconds/130.510mph). Scott Dixon
scored the third best lap of the afternoon in the #44 Team Target
Lola/Toyota, at 58.094 seconds (130.506mph).

"This is a track where you can pass. I really like this track," da Matta
declared. "It's fast, it's wide and I've always had good cars here.
That helps," he grinned. For Kanaan, each session has "been like a test.
We've been struggling, but we got it together today. I'm still not
totally happy with the car, but being second is okay. This [result] is
good for our team. We really need that and we'll keep working together to
make our car better." The quiet Dixon found his Lola/Toyota "pretty good
in the morning. It was quite consistent all day. We wanted a bit more
front grip for qualifying and, while we found a bit of traffic on the last
lap, I'm pretty happy with this result."

Fourth place went to Michael Andretti's #39 Team Motorola Lola/Honda. He
was "really happy with the car today. We made some big changes that
really seem to suit my driving style. I think we're getting closer," he
said after a quick lap of 58.111 seconds (130.468mph) on his 14th of 15
allocated tours of the Burke Lakefront circuit.

Christian Fittipaldi, who runs well here, was fifth in the #11 Lilly
Lola/Toyota, with a 58.211sec/130.243mph lap.

"It's nice to be fast off the trailer for the first time in several races
and the chassis feels really good," said Jimmy Vasser, after setting the
sixth- quickest lap in his #8 Shell Lola/Ford (58.477sec/129.651mph).

Recovering from a morning oil leak and electrical fire that forced him to
use the spare #27 Team KOOL Green Lola/Honda, Dario Franchitti was 7th for
the day. Bruno Junqueira was 8th in the #4 Target Lola/Toyota after
making changes from the morning session that didn't quite work. Paul
Tracy took 9th slot in the #26 Team KOOL Green Lola/Honda, battling
traffic on his hot laps. All nine ran within one second of da Matta.

Sunday's 115-lap Marconi Grand Prix should be held under similar beautiful
conditions to today, which saw breezy air temps of 81-83 and track
temperatures between 106-108. The race will be shown live on CBS Sports
at 1:30pm EDT.